Conservation Lands Foundation and Partners Legally Challenge President Trump’s Latest Assault on Bears Ears National Monument

Contacts:
Conservation Lands Foundation, Kris Deutschman, kris@conservationlands.org

A'Nuche Inc., Deena Ute, Executive Director, utedeena@gmail.com

Utah Diné Bikéyah, Phil Rentz, p.rentz52@gmail.com

Archaeology Southwest, Skylar Begay, skylar@archaeologysouthwest.org

Patagonia, PatagoniaPress@patagonia.com 

The Access Fund, Madi Walsh, mwalsh@accessfund.org 

National Trust for Historic Preservation, Elliot Carter, ecarter@savingplaces.org

Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, P. David Polly, pdpolly@pollylab.org

Filing seeks to return the landmark monument case to the active docket and challenge President Trump’s July 13, 2026, proclamation

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Local and national groups working to protect and defend Bears Ears National Monument today filed motions asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to allow them to challenge President Trump’s most recent assault on Bears Ears National Monument. Conservation Lands Foundation, Utah Diné Bikéyah, Archaeology Southwest, Patagonia Works, The Access Fund, A’Nuche, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology are seeking to expedite their challenge to President Trump’s July 13, 2026, proclamation eliminating nearly 90 percent of the monument.

The filing reactivates litigation first brought in December 2017, when Conservation Lands Foundation and its partners challenged President Trump’s initial reduction of Bears Ears National Monument. The July 13, 2026, proclamation reduces the Bears Ears National Monument from approximately 1.35 million acres to just 121,096 acres, removing protections from more than 90 percent of the monument. The July 13 proclamation on Bears Ears also terminated, or attempted to terminate, the Bears Ears Commission and its collaborative management.

Statements from Plaintiffs

"If one president is allowed to illegally erase a national monument then none of them are safe and that should worry every American, not just the ones who've spent time in these monuments. ‘Protected’ doesn’t mean temporary and we’re fighting for the overwhelming majority of people who support national monuments and public lands to defend the durability of the system itself.” Chris Hill, CEO of Conservation Lands Foundation 

“On behalf of Utah Diné Bikéyah we are reaching out to every Tribe and non-profit to stand together to provide protection of the Earth not only at Bears Ears, but on public land throughout the world. In 2017 and most recently, President Trump acted illegally in significantly reducing National Monument protections and tried not only to divide Tribes, but to dismantle collaborative efforts that honored trust and treaty responsibilities. We know the history of Bears Ears and Tribes, where we stand as collective people today, and we will not be separated and silenced again.” Phillip Rentz, Board Chairman of Utah Diné Bikéyah

"Mother Earth’s voice isn’t heard by the general public. As Ute people we know that our ecosystem is put together by the Creator intricately and we are just a small part of it. As Ute people and humans we cannot exist without the support of our ecosystem. Today, it may seem as if we are fighting to keep uranium and rare earth minerals mining out of the Bears Ears area, when in fact we are fighting for our own existence. We cannot exist without the support of mother nature." Deena Ute (Ute Mountain Ute Tribe), Executive Director, A'Nuche, Inc.

“Our position hasn’t changed: Downsizing a national monument was illegal in 2017, and it is illegal in 2026. The 2016 proclamation is very clear about what these landscapes mean to Tribes for the histories, memories, and teachings they hold. Those meanings haven’t changed. What has changed from the 2017 attempt, and is particularly appalling to us as an organization dedicated to Tribal collaboration in our work and to myself as a Diné, is the disbanding of the Bears Ears Commission that was established to facilitate co-management of these ancestral homelands. We stand with Tribes, and we stand with the Antiquities Act.” Skylar Begay (Diné, Mandan and Hidatsa), Director of Tribal Collaboration, Archaeology Southwest 

“Slashing Bears Ears and dismantling the Bears Ears Commission is a betrayal of Tribal sovereignty and needlessly throws away years of effort to create the first Tribal co-management structure of a national monument in U.S. history. Patagonia worked with the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, scientists, conservation groups, outdoor industry advocates and more to establish the monument in 2016, and we are committed to defending it today and into the future. We need leaders in all levels of government and from across the country to push back against the administration’s order and the greater whole-of-government assault on public lands, climate action and environmental protection—and we must hold them accountable if they do not.” Patagonia CEO Ryan Gellert

“The illegal reduction of Bears Ears National Monument threatens a landscape of extraordinary ecological, cultural, historical, and recreational significance. Bears Ears protects critical habitat, sacred places and cultural resources of deep importance to Indigenous peoples, irreplaceable archaeological and paleontological sites, and some of the country’s most exceptional outdoor recreation opportunities, including world-class climbing. Sacrificing these lands for the short-term interests of extractive industries would cause far reaching and unnecessary harm to America’s public lands system.” Heather Thorne, executive director of The Access Fund 

"Bears Ears is a place of profound cultural and historic significance, and its irreplaceable resources deserve lasting protection. We are proud to continue our long-standing collaboration with Tribal nations and our partners in defending Bears Ears and the principles of preservation embodied by the Antiquities Act.” Brent Leggs, President and CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation

“Amid the cultural heritage and unique landscapes of Bears Ears National Monument are unique paleontological sites that tell the story of life in North America before and after the Earth’s most massive extinction 251 million years ago, many of them still to be discovered. Downsizing of the Monument has stripped conservation priority from about 90% of them leaving them vulnerable to damage and theft and lowering their priority for research that will tell us all about the time when life almost died and how it rebloomed as the age of dinosaurs.” P. David Polly, Monument Liaison and Past President

Background

The Antiquities Act of 1906 authorizes presidents to establish national monuments to protect historic landmarks, structures and objects of historic or scientific interest on federal lands. The lawsuit argues that the law does not give presidents the power to revoke or substantially diminish monuments established by their predecessors. That authority rests with Congress.

Several mining claims have already been illegally staked in Bears Ears National Monument, suggesting that the Bureau of Land Management will not defend the integrity of Bears Ears, and, in fact, may be moving quickly toward authorizing and permitting ground-disturbing activities within Bears Ears. The plaintiffs remain vigilant and prepared to respond if the agency begins opening lands to mining, drilling, road construction or other activities that could cause permanent harm.

Why Bears Ears Matters

Bears Ears is part of a living and interconnected cultural landscape that has been home to and stewarded by Native peoples since time immemorial. The five Tribes continue to maintain cultural, spiritual and other relationships with Bears Ears and carry responsibilities to care for these lands. The Bears Ears landscape contains an extraordinary concentration of cultural sites, ancestral dwellings, rock imagery, ceremonial places, historic structures and other objects of profound cultural and scientific importance.

The effort to permanently protect Bears Ears was led by the five Tribal Nations working together through the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition: the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and Zuni Tribe. The five Tribes later worked through the Bears Ears Commission with the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service to develop a groundbreaking approach to collaborative management that recognizes Tribal Nations’ knowledge, expertise and enduring connections to the landscape.

Background on the Bears Ears litigation

In December 2017, Conservation Lands Foundation and its co-plaintiffs filed suit challenging President Trump’s initial 2017 reduction of Bears Ears National Monument. At the same time, five Tribal Nations and a separate coalition of national and regional conservation groups also filed suit. The Bears Ears cases were assigned to Judge Chutkan in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

After a series of preliminary rulings favorable to Conservation Lands Foundation and its co-plaintiffs, the parties completed briefing on summary judgment in June 2020. The case has been administratively closed since early 2021, meaning that it has not remained on the judge’s active docket but can be returned to it by motion.

In October 2021, President Biden issued a new Antiquities Act proclamation redesignating and expanding Bears Ears National Monument. In August 2022, the State of Utah, the Blue Ribbon Coalition and others challenged that proclamation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to reopen the case, and grant leave to file the first supplemental complaint, which challenges President Trump’s July 13, 2026, proclamation eliminating nearly 1.4 million acres from protection under the Antiquities Act.

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